


in moonlight

by papersandals



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ficlet, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, M/M, No Dialogue, Post-Game(s), Post-Time Skip, Post-War, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 00:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20267272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersandals/pseuds/papersandals
Summary: In daylight, they are the very model of a king and his vassal.





	in moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> idk wtf i'm doing

In daylight, they are the very model of a king and his vassal. Dedue is friend, bodyguard, confidant, and shadow; he is subservience, obedience, and fealty molded into human form so as to dissuade Dimitri's opponents and silence his dissenters. Dedue uses his loyalty as a shield. His very existence is meant to serve as a deterrent for any would be foes, and his status as Dimitri's most loyal, most trustworthy vassal is just as much a weapon of politics as it is a reward for his services throughout the war.

In daylight, Dedue never touches him. There are no accidental brushes of the hands, no lingering touches on the shoulder. Dedue never leans in too close to whisper a message into Dimitri's ear, never steps too close when they walk together. The distance they maintain is respectable. The exchanges they have are affable. Never does Dedue use his stature and bulk to so much as hint to the sway he holds over his king. When they are seen together, there is no doubt as to who is the king and who is the vassal. 

In daylight, Dimitri is the king. Dedue is the vassal. That is enough. That must be enough.

The act is easy to carry out. Perhaps, Dimitri sometimes finds himself thinking, too easy. For all that he detested the way Dedue bowed his head to him in their past, Dimitri finds that the performance of such a gap is helpful in the years following the war. In daylight, he is too busy to think much of anything other than reestablishing borders, rebuilding ties, reconstructing villages, reorganizing structures, revitalizing nations, removing the personal from the important. In daylight, he is stretched twenty different ways for sometimes twenty hours in a row. The distance, the impersonality of it all, is necessary. Dimitri is a King. He serves his citizens. Kings, good ones, do not have the luxury of being people.

In daylight, they are the very model of a king and his vassal. Here are the lines. There they shall stay. Never shall they cross nor stray.

But when the sun sets, when the moon rises and there are no waking eyes to see, no alert ears to hear, no witnesses to not the King and his vassal but _Dimitri and Dedue_— 

Dedue's hands are large. Calloused. Scarred. They have killed and destroyed and slaughtered and beaten and murdered for him. They are thick with scar tissue that was never given a chance to heal properly, knotted with callouses and tears, worn rough from years of unending, unyielding service.

Yet these hands are tender. Soft. Gentle. These are the hands that can sew the tiniest and neatest of stitches, that can gently brush moist soil off soft roots, that can measure and pour out ingredients for a meal fit for someone who is more than just a king, that can hold Dimitri and brush ever so gently down the curve of his back, that can brace and hold and soothe and love. Dedue's hands represent him so well. Despite the scars and the hardness, Dedue's hands are comfort, safety, trust, love. The blood soaked hands that wielded weapons to kill are the same ones that caress Dimitri's cheeks when they kiss. They are the same hands that brushes back Dimitri's hair when they lay together. They are the same hands that hold Dimitri, gentle yet unyielding, through the nightmares.

When they are alone, moonlight pooling around their bodies, Dimitri is no king and Dedue is no vassal. They are not paragons of kingliness and subservience. They are not heroes to emulated and praised. They are not anything but themselves. They are two people who have hurt together, bled together, fought together, triumphed together, love together— 

They are Dimitri and Dedue, and they love each other.

In moonlight, that is enough.


End file.
